Chase Refrain
by Lawrence Fitzroy
Summary: Rose's distaste for authority is as pointless as it is reckless. Dmitri may not understand the lure of cigarettes, but she understands vodka's appeal.
1. Chapter 1

Rose ran. Flat out, heart pounding, skittering against rib and sternum, calves burning, thighs taut, stomach clenched, she ran. She could hear the crash of her feet on tarmac loud and strident in her head, but her pursuer made no sound. She could feel him behind her through, like the sting of iodine. The corner of the pack of straights she'd stuffed into her bra dug into her side and her arm as she slung down the road, an arrow vibrating and twisting from the bow, fletchings keening in the air. But if she was fast – and goddamn, she was fast – then he was inexorable. Attempting to outrun him was tantamount to attempting to outrun the tick of a clock. Still, she pushed her legs, running on willpower opposed to muscle. Tendons taut and mind tauter. She pounded down on the road, as the trees arched over head, shading out the bright sun. She could smell him now, like cut grass, apples and smokehouses, silent and deadly at her heels.

She was not going to be caught from behind. Inglorious end to a fine chase, she decided, and prepared to spin and dodge around him. If she could. Her breath sang in her windpipe, like some rare instrument. Apples and smokehouses and something earthy and sharp?

She spun, lithe and balanced on the ball of her foot, and ducked to the right.

'Fuck,' she breathed, and leapt back, blocked by a tall figure. 'It's no fun when you read my mind.'

He glowered, silent, at her pout. She slid further back, light on her toes, her whole body like an elaborate feint. Her fingers were still curled round her cigarette. She saw his gaze darken further as his gaze slid to her hand and smirked, lifting the cigarette to her lips and attempting a puff. She ducked and spun as he dived at her, narrowly missing. Her whole being crowed with delight.

'Fuck,' she repeated, frowning at the cig. 'It went out. Got a light?' Her grin broadened, cheeks appled with mirth and eyes flickering with cheek.

He growled, low in his throat, and struck. She parried with her forearm, just, but he'd already kicked her legs out from under her. She landed heavy on the road as he plucked the fag out of her hand. He stared at it with distaste and shredded it quickly with clever fingers, flicking it to the wind. Rose gritted her teeth at the impact, but pushed up gracelessly to stand in a fighter's stance, fists raised and knees unlocked.

He turned to meet her, eyes still dark with anger. 'Filthy habit, Rose. I thought you knew better. How can you expect to fight with lung cancer?'

'Comrade, don't you mean: how can you expect to make sweet Russian love with tongue cancer?' she parodied, mangling his lilting accent. She stayed light on her toes, fists still covering her face.

'Why do you insist on such self-destructive behaviour, Rose?' His voice was gentle. His poise was vicious.

She lunged forward, landing a roundhouse in his ribs before he winded her. 'Just a natural reaction to authority, I guess.'

'The problem with reacting to authority is that authority has all the power.' He feinted, shoulders shifting, and she missed his bone-crushing kick by a hair's breadth. 'Particularly when you've been smoking. And emphysema's slowing you down.' He articulated his points with kata – jab, jab, hook – that bruised her forearms when she parried. She danced back, light on her toes, shrinking from his attack.

'Sometimes, Dmitri, I think you need to relax.' He saw her legs bunch too late, as she landed another roundhouse. 'Just chill the fuck out.' She was under his guard before he knew it, clinching his arms between them. He was powerless to attack, his arms pressed between their bodies. 'And if you try to throw me, I will knee you in the balls. I assure you.'

They stood like that, some absurd human pretzel in the middle of a deserted road, breathing heavily. She could feel the knotting of his biceps under her arms as he fought the urge to throw her off, and the fast skid of his heart. That was curious to her – he seemed physically impassive, impossible to provoke a response from. She shifted slightly against him, and heard his breath hitch. She grinned against his chest, deep in his smell.

'Seriously, Comrade, relax.' She loosed him, stepping out of arm's reach fluidly. 'Have you seriously never smoked?'

'Of course not,' he replied with withering scorn.

'Jesus. It's like talking to a judgemental preteen. You have drunk, am I correct? I was under the impression all the Russians did was vodka by the glassful and gulags.'

He grinned at that, surprising her. Speaking slowly, as if to a child, he said, 'In Russia, it is very cold. The winters freeze your body and spirit. Sometimes the firewood runs out and up in the Ural Mountains that is a death sentence. Vodka burns out the frostbite and cleanses the soul. So what can you do? Would you have me freeze to death?'

She laughed, 'So you're telling me that drunkenness is acceptable in situations of near-death. By your logic, if I was dying, a cigarette would be permissible? That's fucked up, Comrade. Absolutely nonsensical.'

He shrugged. 'When you've survived a Russian winter, then you come and complain to me.'

'I have a better solution,' Rose slid her straights out of her bra, smirking at the horror on Dmitri's face, 'if you smoke a cigarette with me, here and now, I will quit forever.'

'Or I could keep chasing you and destroying them,' Dmitri lunged at the packet. Rose neatly sidestepped.

'You and I both know you won't be able to beat me for much longer.' Dmitri looked up at her appraisingly for a second, then down at the pack in her hand like some stalking cat. She landed another kick at his side, to clarify her point.

He straightened up, ruefully rubbing his ribs. 'Maybe with lung cancer I stand more of a chance… Alright, alright, devotchka, I agree. Let us smoke tobacco, bond over shared carcinogens, and then you're running laps and never smoking again.'

'You're shit. But ok. You've a deal.'

'Eloquent,' Dmitri's eyes crinkled for a second, before he reached out a hand. Rose slid a cigarette out and placed it in his hand. He hooked it in the corner of his mouth and reached out, palm flat again. Sighing, Rose extracted her final cigarette and the lighter, and passed over the packet. Dmitri pocketed it.

'Such a waste. They were too young to die unsmoked.' Dmitri smiled quietly at Rose's melodrama, and looked up patiently. Rose fumbled the lighter, distracted by the cig dangling from Dmitri's lips. She shook her head at the pornography of it, death framed by sensual mouth. The lighter ground quietly, obstinately not lighting for a few clicks. She puffed in, as though sucking in the flame through the cigarette, and the tip caught and burnt, sending up a delicate whisp of smoke. Dmitri watched, amused, as Rose took a long drag and sighed.

He coughed, and Rose focused again. 'Right,' she said, and chucked the lighter behind her, off into the trees. 'Let's get you lit.'

'How, precisely, do you plan to do that without a lighter?'

'Like this,' she stepped up, uncomfortably close and stood up on her tiptoes, inclining her head. She slipped a hand around his neck and brusquely pulled his face towards hers. 'Now,' she said, and trailed off. Her other hand brushed his lips, centring his cigarette, and lingered at his chin. She guided their faces closer, brushing the ends of the cigarettes together.

'Inhale,' she instructed around a mouthful of cigarette. He was transfixed by the slight tilt of her neck as she aligned the cigarettes, the perfect curve of it. The glow of her cigarette and its ashy contact with his mesmerised him. He shook himself out of it and breathed in, ears pricking at the soft crackle as the paper and tobacco caught flame.

Rose stepped back, admiring the sight. Dmitri took the cigarette from his mouth carefully, and coughed quickly at the unfamiliar weight of the smoke in his lungs.

She laughed, 'You're doing it perfectly. A natural. And now we walk.'

He strode beside her down the road, taking cautious drags when she did. He noticed she kept sneaking glances at him and raised his eyebrows questioningly at her.

'Just trying to remember this. Need a good mental image,' she grinned, 'to add to the spank bank.'

He coughed at that.

'Seriously, Comrade, you should smoke more often. It's hard to look away.' At that she curled her lips around her cig and inhaled deeply. Her eyes fluttered close slightly, and he could see the fluid power in her steps, reminding him of her gait running and the way her hair had twisted with each stride. He had to look away.

Rose finished her cigarette and ground the butt under her heel. 'When you get to the end, near the filter, it starts to taste sweet,' she told Dmitri, voice slightly husky, 'and you gotta remember that taste, because it's one of the best feelings in the world, and it doesn't last longer than a drag or two. If this is your only cigarette ever,' she smiled, 'you've got to pay attention to those two last drags. Trust me, Comrade.'

He looked at his cigarette thoughtfully, and watched it. He trusted Rose.

'We're almost back now,' she observed, grinning 'back to the gates where you saw me smoking and decided that chasing me like a homicidal lunatic for close on a mile was the appropriate response.'

'As your mentor, I have a responsibility to impress upon you the seriousness of your actions. It was also probably close on three miles, if I remember correctly. In about eleven minutes.'

'So we probably shouldn't let the administration see you smoking,' she chuckled, 'or they'll think I'm a bad influence.'

'Imagine that,' Dmitri agreed, the irony gentle in his voice.

'Let's stay out here until you – uh, until you finish. Can you taste that hint of sweetness yet?'

'Yes, I think – yes, now.' Dmitri closed his eyes, holding his breath for a second or so. 'It is a remarkable taste.'

'Can we just try something quickly,' Rose asked nervously, leaning forward. Dmitri nodded. 'Take your last drag, and then hold it for a second.'

Dmitri obliged, eyes fluttering almost as Rose's had done at the strange taste of the end of the tobacco. He chucked the butt away behind him.

'Now breathe out slowly.'

He opened his eyes at the feeling of small hands placed on his biceps. Rose stood on tiptoe, tilted her neck, opened her mouth slightly, and waited, lips achingly close to his. Dmitri exhaled the last breath of his swansong cigarette, as Rose inhaled his smoke, eyes closed. She stood there for a moment, hands on his arms, face to face, eyes closed, and then dipped down to exhale past him.

'Shit,' she whispered, barely speaking, 'it tastes even better like that.'

She licked her lips, hesitantly, as though unsure of what to do now. Her hands felt empty. Dmitri couldn't help himself – he bent down and kissed her. The vulnerability of her lips shocked him into adoration. Such a strong person had no business being so honestly, frankly, sensually soft. Rose threaded her hands carefully into his hair, pulling him closer, and hesitantly sucked at his lip. There was a soft moan about her body, but at the touch of her tongue they were branded with heat. No caution now. The press and pull of teeth and tongue, hands and bodies, overwhelmed with the taste of the last of a cigarette, encapsulated everything in a moment of taut twist and torsion.

Dmitri pulled back, gazing at her searchingly. Rose laughed, open and free all of a sudden, 'I take it back, Comrade. Fucking hell, Dmitri, it tastes best like that.'


	2. Chapter 2

The tree was broad and solid at Rose's back. Each crenulation of knotted bark left an imprint like some bizarre crayon rubbing in her back. Her head lolled back, and her eyes were closed. From Dmitri's vantage point some yards away, with his view of her bent leg and toes splayed against the branch on which she sat, Rose appeared as some exquisite mirage. Her fingers picked absently at the moss, and one leg swung slow arches in the hot air. He marvelled at the way the leaves cast dappled shadows on her shoulders, shadows that mottled across her hair, and at her exposed neck below her up-thrown chin.

The day was heavy with sun and baking earth. The grass was close to yellowing brittle blades, but in the shade, everything felt verdant and alive, clicking and rasping, growing and sunning. Rose could feel the sun and the whispering leaves through her gold stained eyelids. The pace of her swinging leg, fingernails plucking at bark, scrunching toes, all were somehow meditative and mesmerising. The moment was stretching out into infinity. Her entire being could feel the circles of her foot, as though the static breeze between her toes had concentrated all sensation into concentricity. Her leg pulled her hip into an infinitesimally slow rock against the limb she sprawled on. It was too warm and still for pleasure, but her breath sang.

Dmitri tried not to noticed the way that Rose, posed between him and the sun, was articulated and outlined in gold, tried to ignore the flush of russet and the freckles across her cheeks, and the way he could hear the slight rustle of her shirt over her chest as she inhaled lazily. But his entire being cried out not to disturb the moment, but to join it. This was iconography, this was worship. Her dark eyes, even closed, called to him, despite training and rigor and regulation. He shivered as a languid breeze slid over his shoulders, and swallowed this fervent baptism of sunlight to bury it next to his carefully paced heart.

"Rose."

Not a call, not a question, hardly articulated, more of a deep whisper. Yet her eyes sprung open, and her leg hung still.

"It's time to train. Come down."

She turned her face down to him slowly, and glared at him deliciously.

Dmitri had to stifle the urge to look away in wonder as she stood up with near feline grace, a deep stretch of her stacked vertebrae, and obvious disdain in her features. She was so unaware of the power in her movements. She pretended to fall, catching a branch above her at the last second, but Dmitri hardly blinked. As if she would ever fall.

Rose hung out over him, "Comrade, it's far too hot to train. Perspiration does not become me. You're welcome to join me in my nap."

"As attractive a proposition as –," Dmitri paused, and squinted up at her through dark lashes, grinning at her scowl, before his voice became steelier, "Come down. How you can hope to manage Strigoi if you cannot manage a warm day is beyond me."

Rose held his gaze, and jumped down for her perch to land crouched and catlike, seeming to hardly consider the ten metre drop.

"Unseasonably warm, Comrade, I think you'll find. And, if I remember correctly, Strigoi _die_ in sunlight." She strode towards him, knees loose and fists upraised, "Frankly, I think you disturbed my nap for a useless exercise."

"Useless?" Dmitri leant away from her jab as though his body had never been where Rose aimed. "I _distinctly_ remember you pleading for my training."

Rose growled from between clenched teeth, and launched into her favourite kata, punches punctuating her words.

"That is not," jab, "exactly," kick, "how," feint, "I," jab, "remember," jab, "it." She grinned as the final kick landed home. "It was something resembling punishment, if my memory serves."

"Punishment?" Dmitri arched an eyebrow, a roguish grin playing across his face. "My company?"

Rose straightened up, dropping her hands and grinning back. Her waist curved like a question mark into her jutting hip, and her toes pressed into the grass. "Perhaps not your company. But your goddamn exercises – yes." Up came her fists, and the attack resumed.

"And the idea of me pleading for anything is, frankly," she swung a vicious right hook that made satisfying contact with his jaw, "demeaning."

Dmitri grinned again, sidestepping and rubbing his jaw. Rose recognised too late that his defence was over, seeing him lean forward unto the balls of his feet like a deathly dancer and kick out her legs with a roundhouse kick in the same moment. She gazed up at a sky the colour of an overexposed polaroid. The impact had winded her, and her diaphragm burned with the crash of defeat. Her head throbbed and everything felt loose, a little jarred. Her jaw ached, strangely, and she could feel the bruising gathering on her knuckles.

"Now we have established that I am not, as of yet, wholly defunct," Dmitri almost purred, "may I suggest — or rather, demand — laps."

His shadow stretched over her, coalescing into a reaching hand. She took it and pulled herself up. It was cool and calloused, enveloping her palm. She could feel his pulse through his fingertips – an absurdly delicate flutter against the back of her hand. Her breathing settled, and the wild feeling of violation and affront that accompanies hurt fled with a ragged exhale. Instead of dropping Dmitri's hand, she turned it, spreading his fingers open and running her thumb over his rough palm. Her eyes were intent, but his searched her downturned face with a lost expression. With delicate deliberation, she lifted his hand up and kissed his palm, eyelids flicking closed for the briefest of moments. Then she was off, onto the white ghostings of the track, barefoot and hair unfurled down her back, knees beating a swift tempo against the day.

Dmitri's palms felt empty. He sat down, cross-legged, to wait, but his hand stayed open. He could feel the brush of her lips on every inch of his skin.

Rose ran flat out, each foot fall a leap. Dmitri would only call for her to stop when she was too tired to follow the lane markings, and if she dropped her pace it was tantamount to utter failure. Every line of her was tensed, exhilarated. He made her body flame and fall. She needed none of his approval when she had the pure joy of her strength and speed, but together they danced a fine fight. She feinted, dodged, run and hit with her heart in her mouth, because each moment opposite him was charged. Rose could feel his eyes on her as she flew over brittle grass and warm earth. Her ears could pick out the hard thump of his heart, even as her breath grew rough. She felt like a sword, grateful to be worked into as lithe a weapon as her maker.

The heat of the day blurred the time again, as though Rose was simultaneously at the 100m mark, each staggered relay lane and the finish line. Dmitri looked down, but listened to her as she ran – to each footfall, pant and gasp. As the air began to catch – he heard it almost in his own throat – Dmitri ran to her, meeting her as she rounded the final curve.

"Race me to the finish line, Rose."

No sympathy, no question. Rose laughed, and her hands tightened into balls as her stomach drew together and her legs tensed like bowstrings. She drove herself, upping the pace of his feet as though she was a metronome cycling through beats per minute. The soles of her feet flamed hot, as she sprung on towards the elusive line. The wildness of being winded, beaten, of loss ignited in her, and although Dmitri was fresh and ran like a 700 horsepower car rolling off a cliff, she flew over the finish line first. She slowed her legs with difficulty.

"Fuck," she crowed, panting opening to quell her sudden need to retch, "I'm going to need an ice bath after that." Dmitri gazed at her with open awe framed in his face.

"You are," he paused, as though words were inadequate, "astonishing, do you realise?"

She met his eyes, cocky and unkempt. He tried to ignore the swift rise and fall of her chest.

"Yeah," Rose laughed breathlessly, "but not so Zen. Fuck, fuck, fuck – my legs."

"Stretch," he growled.

"Sure, sure," she muttered, half-heartedly leaning forwards. "I just want my tree seat back. Fat chance I'll be able to climb up again after this. Thanks, Comrade."

"Stretch properly," Dmitri's voice was almost dangerous. "Do you want to be able to walk tomorrow?"

Rose laughed to herself, perversely amused by the remark. "Not particularly, Comrade, but preferably from other pursuits," she muttered under her breath.

"You forget dhampirs have excellent hearing, Rosa."

Rose snickered louder, and then paused.

"Fucking nocturnal moroi and their fucking nocturnal schedule!" Rose exploded. "Comrade, what's the time?"

"Half past two, give or take," Dmitri replied immediately, without obvious reference to anything.

"I have to be at class in four hours! If Kirova hears about me sleeping in lectures one more time… Fuck." She looked up at Dmitri through her cascading hair. "I'm blaming you, Comrade Belikov. If I can even walk to the classroom."

"Devotchka, stop complaining. Lie down, I'll help you stretch, ten minutes in an ice bath, two in a hot shower, sleep for three hours, and I'll wake you up at eight with coffee. Now lie back."

She slumped back against the grass. "Comrade, you think about my bathing schedule in great detail."

Dmitri just chuckled, lifting one of her legs off the ground with strong hands wrapped around her ankle.

"Keep your other leg flat to the ground," he instructed.

With one hand on her knee, keeping her leg straight, and the other still circling her ankle like a brand of contact, Dmitri pushed her leg back towards her shoulders. She muttered expletives as the burn of aching muscles crept to a fevered intensity. He moved his hand to the arch of her foot, flexing it tight, as he continued to increase the pressure. She could feel the warmth of his abdomen on her calf, the slight pull of his muscles as he leant forward. Her legs screamed and skittered. Once the angle between her stomach and thigh was acute and shaking, Dmitri held her there, body undone and foot pressed against his chest. Ten long seconds.

Rose almost fainted after the second leg. The surplus, the pure excess of sensation from his pressure and his hands was too much. The ground was soft and warm under her shoulders.

Dmitri's voice was gentle, "Rosa, you— let me help you inside."

She lay there for a moment, ignoring him, gazing up into the sharp blue. "How do moroi live – without the sun?"

"I do not know. Only, we dhampirs must always remember that these days in the sunlight or the rain are a gift for creatures born of blood and darkness. But, Rosa, take my hand."

He helped her up, encircling her forearms. She swayed a little as she stood, but shook off his hands.

"I can walk."

"I know, devotchka." Dmitri threaded his fingers into her hair and brushed her forehead with his lips so briefly she could have imagined it. "Cold bath, shower, then sleep. I will wake you at eight."


	3. Chapter 3

_In her dream, Rose stood in a wasteland and smoked like a chimney. She was smoking stale Marlboro golds that burnt up to the filter after a single drag. Their cloying weight stung deep in her lungs. She'd drag, and throw away the glowing butt, and light up again, and drag, and chuck the ember, again and again, and the cracked earth was covered in the nicotine stained refuse of her sub-conscious. For a moment, she was an old-time circus automaton with a mechanised arm that brought cigarettes to her lips in creaking tempo, and then a patient with an oxygen tube, deep-sea diving through the filthy monotony of life. She was sub-human, ruled by the whispering snicker of fire between her teeth._

_She wondered, briefly, where the cigarettes were coming from and how she was lighting them._

_Just as she felt her last alveoli shred into putrid emphysema and the tarry mucus from the 'Smoking Kills' label rising up to choke her, the stifle of the smoke thinned. She coughed twice, and with a shaking convulsion that wracked her insides, spat out blood. It soaked into the greedy ground in a flash. The hot sky cooled inexorably to an iron grey and she could hear the distant sound of rain. As first, it was the soft rush of wind through eucalyptus leaves, but with frightening speed, it grew to a dull roar and engulfed the spot where she stood. It was a deluge that tossed and battered her and she felt like she was slipping sideways, off her bed into neverwhere and evermore. Then it settled into an insistent patter that faded out of her head, into some ambient external._

It's raining, Rose thought, and clawed her way from sleep into the waking day.

The light in her room was pale and watery, and the late afternoon outside was damp under a spitting sky. She untangled herself from her sheets and tugged her curtains closed again in disgust. Her muscles creaked in protest as she pulled on a sweater and socks and shrugged her way out of her door, jamming battered feet into battered sneakers. She caught her reflection in a curtained window – wan face, mussed bed-head, bruised collarbone, wrinkled leggings and bony ankles – and tried to comb out her hair with her fingers. She gave up.

The rain splattered on her back, a seeping, uncomfortable damp. She tried to keep under the archways and jutting masonry of the old school buildings, scuffing along paving stones as their inhabitants slept.

Dmitri was waiting for her, leaning against his doorframe with studied nonchalance. She tried to stop her eyes raking over him, but she knew she was fighting a losing battle.

'You're late, Rosa.'

'Weird dreams – I think it's the weather,' she shrugged, avoiding his gaze.

'On that note,' he squinted out into the seeping wet, 'I think forcing you to run in this rain would finally make me the torturer you so often accuse me of being. Come inside, and we'll figure out training for today.'

She slipped past him into his room.

'Comrade, can I put the kettle on?'

'Be my guest – tea or coffee? I don't have any milk, so you'll have to have it black.'

'Like my soul. Tea?'

He chucked a teabag at her, silent and fast, and smiled as her nimble fingers plucked it out of mid-air, thoughtlessly interrupting its parabolic grace. Dmitri watched Rose watch the kettle as it began its tuneless whistle. He watched her ritual, confused as she swilled boiling water around the empty mug, before pouring it down the sink, adding the teabag and pouring out a full cup from the singing kettle. She left it to brew and paced over to the carpet.

Noticing the question in his raised eyebrows, she explained, 'The mug needs to be hot before you pour the water in.'

'Needs?'

'Unless you like drinking dishwater. I, for one, do not. I thought Russians understood tea.'

He laughed, deep in his throat. She stalked back to the counter, chucking the teabag into the sink and taking a tentative sip. The grin that spread across her face spoke volumes. She carried in over to him, clutched in her cupped hands.

'Look – I can finally open my eyes! It's a miracle, I tell you. Try it, Comrade, it might change your life too.'

He sipped, and nodded appreciatively, passing it back. Sinking to the carpet, Rose sighed, drank huge gulps and rubbed at her ribs.

'Sore?' he questioned.

'Fuck, yes. All your fault,' Rose grumbled, twisting around into some convoluted back stretch. He heard her back click and pop, and her huffing exhale.

'We can take a break today, if you want.'

'Come on, don't say it like that.'

'Like what?'

'As though I'm slacking.' She frowned, and mimicked his slight twisting of conventional American pronunciation, '"Rosa, if you can't take it, I can go easy." But, Comrade, I can take it. So do your worst.'

Dmitri smiled at her. She took a sip of tea, uncomfortable. He ran a hand through his hair and rubbed thoughtfully at the back of his neck. She thought of his marked neck, and had to suppress a shiver. She followed the motion of his fingers with her eyes, and sipped again. He took a deep breath, and she could almost feel the pressure of his torso opening up and folding back down.

'Rosa, in all honesty, I have pushed you harder than I have ever seen a student pushed before. I have asked more of you than anyone– any mentor ever asked of me, and with minimal consideration for your health of body or mind. Frankly, I have no right to treat you like this.' He searched for her eyes, and held her gaze for a soft pause. 'But every time I think I've finally gone too far, you astonish me. I ask you for an unimaginable feat, and you exceed beyond comprehension. Just when I think you can run no faster, move no quicker, you do just that. It is astounding, heart-breaking. So if you are bruised, and I say you can rest, believe me when I tell you it is no grudging concession to your frailty.'

She looked down and drank up the dregs of her tea. 'You're trying to say that I'm awesome and you're sorry for making me feel like one huge bruise?'

'More or less, devotchka.'

'In that case, let's have a night off,' she grinned.

'Or an evening off,' he said ruefully, 'because I'm not sure I can get you out of lessons.'

'You could always try…'

'Oh Rosa, not even I have the balls to cross Kirova. That woman is terrifying.'

'Sorry, Comrade, what was that about your balls?'

He chuckled, and she stretched out on the carpet. 'Yeesh, I hurt all over. Who knew there were muscles in the backs of knees?'

'I raise your sore knees a bruise the size of a football. Your fault, actually.'

'Seriously! How come?'

'One of your infamous roundhouse kicks. It gives literal truth to feeling black and blue.'

'You _are_ infuriating, Comrade. Who can blame me?' She rolled her neck, kneading at it. 'Can I see this bruise?'

He sat up, and unselfconsciously pulled up the hem of his shirt to reveal a spidery bruise wrapping around his right side. She hissed through her teeth, and rolled up onto her knees, leaning forward, transfixed. The edges were yellowed slightly, and colour mottled from mauve to indigo. It was an absurd violation of his skin, but she felt strangely happy to be responsible. The planes of his stomach knit as he twisted slightly to angle the bruise towards her. The hard angles of him hurt to look at.

'Fuck,' she muttered, 'I'm sorry.' She looked up through her hair. 'Does it hurt?'

Another huffing laugh, 'A little, unsurprisingly.'

'At least it's not in the shape of my foot or something.'

The centre of it was almost black and she wanted to take a picture and frame it as an icon. She reached out slowly, as though placating a skittish animal, hoping he wouldn't shy away. Dmitri wasn't afraid of anything, but she wondered if he'd let her touch him. She traced the fading yellow outline with a light whisper of a touch, and tried not to make the promise in her hands and held breath too explicit. She could see he wasn't breathing either.

Rose retracted her hand and pulled back to sit down on her ankles, feeling awry and deformed. His strength and her mark on him. She shook her head, trying to clear the rush of empathetic pain and protective possession.

'Should we talk about the weather?' she asked, a dry smile curling her lips.

'Lovely, isn't it?' Dmitri raised his eyebrows and pulled down his rucked up shirt. Rose tried not to look too disappointed. She wriggled slightly on the carpet and then inched back to lean on the armchair opposite Dmitri. The extra foot of space between them made it much easier to draw coherent breath.

'How does it compare to the Motherland?'

'Favourably.'

'And the people?'

He didn't blink. 'There are, of course, despicable people everywhere, Rosa. But the one truly exceptional person I have met I first encountered far from Russia.'


	4. Chapter 4

Rose tipped the bottom of the bottle up to the ceiling and shifted on her elbows as the last drops trickled pearlescent down the neck. She lipped at the cool glass of the bottle mouth, licking away the ethanolic residue, the last taste of acrid pine and polish. It made her toes curl into the weave of the thread-bare carpet. The hard curve of her neck, up and back, suited the steel of the drink. She savoured the pucker.

'Come _on_, Dmitri, you look as scandalised as if I'd given your vodka bottle a blowjob,' she challenged as he looked back from his blank stare at the wall. 'You're the one giving me alcohol, remember, so stop looking so –'

'Sanctimonious?' he suggested, breaking into a rare grin.

'That'll do. Yup, that. Thanks, Comrade.' She tossed the bottle towards him underhand, and it spun in a crystal pinwheel that diffracted shards of colour. He plucked it out of the air, muting its multi-hued flight.

'I am having my doubts, I must confess.'

'A religious crisis! Do share…' She sat up, all tease and poise. Her eyes shone like plated icons, and his heart leapt and rejoiced as it always did when she fixed her laughing gaze on him.

'No, Rosa – about my role as purveyor of vodka.' He dropped the bottle over the back of the couch and closed his eyes at the muted ring of its landing.

'Ironic considering how much you drank.'

Dmitri permitted a nod, which somehow precessed from the vertical axis of his neck more than he'd intended. He stilled it quickly, leaning back on the couch. 'You do make a valid point. Though I have the liver of a bear so we're probably even.'

'A Russian bear?' Rose exclaimed, voice full of childlike glee. 'But do bears normally drink vodka?'

'You've got me there,' he muttered, somewhere in the direction of the ceiling.

'C'mon, Comrade, I expected some gruesome Russian folktale about a demon bear that massacred a hunting party and, and –,' she paused, loosing steam. He guessed she was casting about for the most gory and colourful description of their deaths.

'And when the villagers found the bodies, they realised all that was missing was a single bottle of Russian Standard?' He laughed at the elation with which she nodded her approval. 'Why would I bother, when you can invent such gems?'

'Probably how all folktales started out anyway,' she mused. He tried to avoid hungrily staring at curves of her relaxed against his carpet. She was laid out; stretched tall, back slightly arched. The cant of her hips and curve of the soles of her feet were supple even in stillness. The only animation of her taut body was the rise and fall of her chest. He watched her hands trace concentric circles on her hipbones, where her rumpled hoodie had rucked up slightly, and wondered if she could feel his eyes on her.

He sighed, 'Ah Rosa, I wish that were the case. But not in Russia. In Russia, nightmares are real.'

Lithe and slow, with some drunken bravado redolent in her movements, she rolled onto her side and propped herself up on a forearm. She caught his gaze with eyes steadfast. 'Why do you always make it out to be a hellhole?'

Dmitri looked away, feeling unaccountably ashamed. 'I don't mean to. It is true, though, that Russia holds her fair share of nightmares.'

She sensed the longing hidden in the gruff undertones of his voice with the direct intuition that made her such a formidable student – and friend, he thought. 'But you miss it anyway?'

'Like an amputee misses their limb,' he admitted, quietly. The hesitancy spun away into the silence, leaving only the sentiment lingering painfully.

'What a metaphor.' Humour coloured her voice again, and his chest swelled. He grinned at the twist in her lips, somewhere between intense pity and dark amusement.

'If you could see it, you would understand! The wind above the frozen Moskva River, the fields of golden crops, the sweet bitterness of everything the eye touches – it is a place of such hope, and such failure.'

He tried to dampen the ridiculous fervour of his words, but it seeped into the set of his shoulders and the way his hands rose to gesticulate unbidden. Rose watched his subtleties flare and be quenched, with her head held in her hand, and let them settle in the warm fuzz of her inebriation.

'I read Anna Karenina, you know?' Rose questioned appraisingly.

'I didn't know. What possessed you?'

'I wondered what I was missing out on, in normal life. I read a bunch of pretentious novels off high school reading lists with Lissa and we felt like humans, for a bit,' she sneered warmly at thought and Dmitri's thoughts stuttered around normalcy, convention and happiness for a while. 'We went for Anna Karenina instead of War and Peace because _sheeit_, that book was huge. We were almost up to Crime and Punishment by the time _you_ dragged us back here.' Her eyes flashed challengingly at him, and he shook away his regrets for what could never be.

'And yet you've never read a – what do you call them – trashy cowboy paperback?'

'Can't say I have, thank _fuck_.'

Dmitri grinned even more widely at her, somewhere between toothily and goofily, trying to make her uncomfortable. She made a fist with one hand and shook it at him, with her eyes asquint like some TV kingpin villain, except horizontal.

'So how did Tolstoy make you feel about my motherland?'

She lay back down flat, and considered. Dmitri felt like he could see her carefully marshalling her thoughts, pushing them into alignment. 'Like that one guy – Lenin?'

Dmitri chuckled, 'I think you mean Levin… Lenin is a very different person altogether.'

'Yeah, yeah, Levin!' she grasped onto the name with relief. 'I felt that same sort of, umm, religious fervour about the true life that can be led there that he did – you know, by the end.' She paused, rubbed her temples with a hand, smiling ruefully at the ceiling before turning her face to him. 'Sorry, that was kind of garbled. I thought vodka would aid and abet my Russian sympathies. I request a refund, goddammit.'

'No, Rosa, I understand you,' Dmitri replied, with an indeterminately gentle look. How absurd to find basic kinship in a foreigner, he thought.

'So this Lenin dude – why's his name familiar?'

'You may have made up for your lack of high school literature, but you are severely lacking in history, Rosa. The _dude _is only the founding father of Russian Communism and the Soviet Union.' He raised an eyebrow. 'His body is actually still on display in his mausoleum in Red Square.'

'Euck.' Rose stuck out her tongue.

'Kind of. It's actually pickled. Apparently they also dilute the chemicals used for re-pickling with vodka.'

'The Russians pickle communists like gherkins with vodka. Go figure.' He laughed at her mangled expression, part revulsion, part merriment.

'It was originally suggested they freeze him, so he could be resurrected in the future.'

Rose sat up suddenly, brows furrowed. 'That's almost as terrifying an idea as reanimated Walt Disney!'

Dmitri couldn't suppress his laugh. 'You find Walt Disney terrifying?'

She rolled her eyes at him. 'Anyone who spends that much time pandering to small children is weird. Paedophile-weird or just weird-weird.'

'Rosa, I shudder to think about your childhood.'

'Yeah,' she paused and seemed to cast her mind's eye over the vista of the years (very sluggishly). 'I do recall my mum being more into give the children butterfly knives than give the children The Lion King, but,' she shook her head as though coming out of water, 'who am I to blame her, really.'

'Butterfly knives? That's something we haven't tried.' He dismissed his bubbling second-hand sorrow and tried to wriggle his eyebrows roguishly, with minimal success.

Rose muttered under her breath, 'We haven't tried a lot of things. I can think of things higher up my list…' She looked up, caught his eyes and the dark heat of them, and blushed. 'Vodka, for example! Hooray for vodka!' She knelt up and lent over the back of the sofa, fishing a new bottle up. Dmitri felt the weight of her hip against his knee like a brand, burning hard promises into the very marrow of him. He swallowed heavily.

'I think I should probably cut you off now,' he managed, and slipped the bottle from her grasp. She pouted and it took all his strength not to trace the lines of her lips.

'Spoil sport.'

He laughed at her petulance, carefully containing the suppressed heat of his awareness of her. 'Anything I can get you to help you sober up? It's already three.'

'_Fuuuck.'_ She groaned at the thought of imminent lessons, and turned to the window to observe the steady sideways pelt of rain. 'Do you have chai?' she asked, hopefully.

Dmitri looked baffled. 'Chai?' he rolled the word round his mouth. 'No, Rosa.'

She pulled herself up from the carpet and loped to the kettle. 'You have not lived, Comrade! Remind me to make you some.' She controlled her scandalised tone with a wink. 'Throw me some black tea then, sugar.'

It was his turn to roll his eyes at her. 'A pointless euphemism.'

'I agree,' she nodded in mock seriousness. 'Sugar in tea is sacrilege.' She paused from rummaging in his cupboards. 'Can I make you a cup?'

'Go ahead.' His head fell back against the sofa again. He felt drained, sapped, bone-tired.

Rose giggled as she tapped her fingers against the counter, waiting for the whistle of soft steam. 'You almost slurred that. Maybe it's finally getting to you!'

'Don't sound so excited, Rosa,' he murmured and smiled sleepily, eyes closed.

'Russian bear, my ass.' She pressed a warm mug into his hands.

'That makes no sense,' he muttered, barely audibly.

'My ass is not nonsensical, thank you very much.'

'You are utterly nonsensical.' It was barely more than whisper.

Suddenly, he felt her breath against his ear. He wondered how he hadn't heard her feet pad across the carpet or the unbearable heat of her body. 'But my tea is better than sex,' she purred.

'I cannot confirm that.' His eyes flickered open.

She huffed and folded down onto the carpet, sitting cross-legged. 'I honestly don't know how to reply to that.'

'I haven't sipped it yet. Far too hot. How can I judge?' He shrugged absently. She blew over her mug, watching the vortices of steam swirl off the surface of the liquid, waiting patiently for it to cool.

She spoke into the pause, 'Another day passes by without training. My body almost feels fully functional again. It's extraordinary!'

'We can't have that,' Dmitri smiled quietly.

Rose stared into the rain again, hypnotized by the sheets of water. 'Blame the weather. It's obviously thwarting us.'

'The rain can't stop you doing push-ups.' He wagged a sleepy finger. She knelt up and bit his finger like a peevish cat. Eyes flickering open, he stared at her in amusement.

'Fuck push-ups.'

'Rosa,' he growled.

She looked back to the window, 'I really dug myself a hole here, didn't I?'

'Perhaps.'

She mumbled into her tea, 'The sad thing is that I can think of far better ways to make me sore.' Her breath made the surface flicker and mist.

'Dhampir hearing, Rosa. You are incorrigible.'

She sat on her heels and caught his eyes, holding them firm. 'And you have iron self control and not much else holding you back.'

He blinked, and clenched his teeth, cupping his tea in his hands. He couldn't muster the strength for denial or feigned ignorance. 'We don't – we don't deserve each other yet.'

She placed her mug on the floor, and took his and put it next to hers. In a flexible second, she straddled his lap, her long hair a curtain around them. Rose bent to kiss him, her lips a touch indescribably sweet. He exhaled shakily into the falling shade of her tresses.

'I think you might be wrong,' she said.


	5. Chapter 5

'…And then he gave you vodka?' Lissa's cut glass vowels chipped off the word _vodka, _shattering in the damn dusk. The clouds hung low and oppressive, stained indigo over the inky glittering puddles across the courtyard.

'C'mon, Lissa.' Rose groaned. 'Stop judging me.'

Lissa's eyebrows inched even higher. 'It's not you I'm judging.'

Leaning painstakingly on the lip of the fountain, Rose rolled her eyes. 'Seriously, Lissa, if anyone's corrupting anyone in this scenario…,' she trailed off suggestively. Grinning at Lissa's predictable shock, she added a wink.

'Rose, you're so…,' she could guess at the words trailing through Lissa's head, 'so awful.'

'What an utterly underwhelming description.' Rose shook her head in mock despair.

'No,' Lissa held up one slender finger, 'what I'm really trying to figure out is how the whole situation arose – you know, in the first place.'

Rose shrugged, finding it hard to organise that sequence of events linearly herself. The part of her that bruised and ached and panted under Dmitri's ministrations (she could laugh at the innocence of it all) was so out of reach under this wine-stained sky ever darkening above her. She felt ridiculous, trying to explain to a moroi the affairs of sunlight. Her tired eyes ached dully under her red-rimmed eyelids, and she shrugged again, trying to shake the feeling of being a rheumy old man. 'It's just all the extra training I've been doing during the day.'

'The day?' Lissa remarked in surprise and inspected her, catching a glimpse of the frayed edges behind her gaze and the effort it took to tear her head from the caresses of her pillow of late. 'That would make sense. You have been looking more bedrag– more tired of late.'

'Were you about to say _bedraggled_?' Rose's nostrils flared in amused indignation. She pulled herself up from her lopsided perch, wincing internally at the irony of the effort it took her. 'Seriously, Lissa? Bedraggled.'

Lissa straightened up herself, fixing Rose with a steely glare. 'If I had a nickel for every time you fell asleep on my shoulder during lectures.' Rose huffed. 'No, really, you drooled on my shoulder last week. You owe me.'

Rose sank back with another eye roll. 'Yeah, well. Belikov's been tiring me out.'

'Rose!' Lissa exclaimed in scandalised tones, muted somewhat by the toothiness of her smile.

Rose smirked, 'Not like that. And you say my mind's been in the gutter.'

'I learnt from the best.'

'So sweet.'

'Anytime.'

She carefully gathered her nodding thoughts again, trying to reconstruct the thread of the conversation, direct it away from somewhere less confusing than the thought of Dmitri euphemistically tiring her out. 'Anyway – he has me doing laps mainly, lots of mixed martial arts stuff, and some weird body weight yoga shit. And he's taken to attacking me at random, which is always fun.'

'And the vodka fits in… how, exactly?'

Rose wondered too. 'I dunno if you've noticed, but it's been raining a fuck-tonne during the days recently. The gym isn't great because I'm running seriously long distances, and, umm, the treadmills don't go fast enough.' She shrugged awkwardly at Lissa's incredulous look.

'Yes?'

'So we just started hanging out during the rain-check. We drink tea – it's very harmless!' She grimaced at her unnecessary defensiveness and Lissa giggled. 'I mean, until yesterday. We were talking about… music lessons as kids, I think, and it started getting quite expansive and confessional. There was this feeling like we were old friends. You know how I call him Comrade to piss him off?' Lissa nodded significantly, and Rose shook her head. 'Well, there was this affinty, or something, like were actually were old comrades in arms with history and loyalty. So he grabbed one of the bottles he keeps behind his couch –'

'As all good Russian do,' Lissa snorted.

Rose couldn't help but grin back. 'Precisely. And I fetched shot glasses, and we drank and kept talking. It felt very natural.'

'But then, I take it, you drank a lot.'

'Mmm.' It had been sharp, but warm, and it had burnt away the ache of her tongue and soft palate: a tough comfort, but suitably ragged and corrosive for one such as her. Fermented potatoes made moonshine, and she'd drunk it in watery daylight, and begun to feel every iota of heaven and earth that separated their two bodies. She blinked.

'Earth to Rose.'

She looked away, unusually self-conscious, and decided to fuck it, to cavort in the grave she dug. 'Yeah, I drank a lot. Then I kissed him.'

'Rose!'

'I _really_ like him, Lissa.' There was so trace of petulance in her statement, despite its blushing schoolgirl construction. It was a declaration to the only person she could ever consider confiding something so formidable in. The word _like_ rang around her head, so unsuitable for the depths of respect, allegiance and temptation she felt tamped down under her sternum. Its sincerity plagued her natural irreverence for god, for man, for emotion, for sleep.

'Rose, he may be a very strong, very scary, fully-trained dhampir, but he is a _man_. I think he probably _likes_ you too.' Lissa's dismissal of all her worldly charms as apparent even to an idiot made Rose's lips curl sardonically. Lissa seemed to be twisting a difficult thought in her head, afraid of sounding condescending. 'I'm more worried for you.'

'So you should be. I feel like my heart's in a protein shake, never mind the jackhammer in my head.' Rose grinned at the metaphor, relieved to have reduced the whole situation to the standard rites of a crush. _My heart hurts; oh no, it must be serious, or maybe just a hangover._

'No, Rose – as in,' Lissa said gently, 'he's a lot older and a lot stronger than you. More _experienced_.'

She chuckled. 'Oh, that. Don't worry – I can take him easily now. Not as if that's ever going to be a problem.' She muttered the last part at her feet, an unreadable expression on her face, and glanced up to find Lissa studying her, eyebrows knitted. 'You should see your face!' she laughed.

Lissa began to see the lithe coils of Rose's limbs, even slumped against the fountain, and wondered at the change. Rose's forearms were freckled and her wrists were wiry. The neat compactness of her torso gave her an undeniable sense of poise that seemed at odds with the weariness of her expression. Tired and hung-over, and yet the raw power of her lingered now Lissa knew to look. Her friend could defeat the school's strongest adult dhampir in a fair fight. She spotted the edge of a yellowing blossom of a bruise under Rose's collar and felt suddenly abashed. 'I suspect I've been a less observant friend than I should have.'

Rose smiled at her slowly, shaking her head as though Lissa was being ridiculous, and rubbed at the back of her neck absently.

Lissa tried again, sensing the circles Rose's thoughts were running. 'Don't worry! From the sounds of it, you've been getting about four hours sleep for the past couple months, and you still look –.'

'Like sex on legs,' Rose lisped, winking again.

Lissa rolled her eyes – two could play at the game. 'Precisely.'

Rose grimaced, gesturing at her uniform. 'I'm making an effort right now. _He,_' Lissa didn't have to ask who she was referring to, 'always sees me half-asleep, or sweaty, or bruised, or drunk, and always in old, baggy t-shirts that smell a bit weird.'

'He likes you!' she crowed, jubilant. 'Anyway, so tell me about this kiss?'

Rose blinked at the two apparent non-sequiturs. 'It was just that. I sat in his lap and kissed him, and then I stumbled back to my room and put myself to bed like the moron I am.'

'Sat in his lap,' Lissa nodded appreciatively, smirking. 'I raised a monster.'

'No lap dances, though,' Rose tried to pout coyly, but it split into a euphoric grin at the memory.

'What's all this about lap dances?' a voice said over her shoulder in a ridiculously matter-of-fact tone.

'Mason!' Lissa shrieked.

Rose punched his shoulder, and went for a scathing, 'In your dreams, honey.'

Mason contorted his eyebrows into some vaudevillian arch at the comeback, rubbing his arm. 'That wasn't really up to par, Rosie dear.'

Lissa glanced at her watch and danced up, hugging Rose and then thrusting her at Mason. As she started pacing off, skipping over the puddle near her feet effortlessly, she called back, 'Mason, sweetie, she's a bit tired. Look after her!'

Mason made a face at Rose, and readjusted his arm around her shoulder. 'We should be getting to class too. But sweetie? Who does she think she is, huh?'

Rose ignored him, preferring to poke him in the ribs as they walked out of the courtyard. '"What's this about lap dances" and _you_ get at _me_. Honestly. Sexual innuendo is both figuratively and literally the lowest form of wit.'

He guffawed at her pious tone. 'Explains why you resort to it so often.'

'I can't help that some things come naturally to me,' she replied with wide-eyed innocence.

'Hmm, I wouldn't advise putting those particular talents on your CV, regardless.'

She looked up at him suddenly from the crook of his arm. 'You know I'm joking, though? Right, Mason?'

He returned her gaze. 'Do you seriously think I'd have defended your honour against so many assholes if I didn't?'

'Like I need you to defend my honour.'

'Fair point. Although I could be the poster boy for the Testicle Preservation Society. I've saved so many young idiots from castration.'

Rose broke into peals of laughter, guffawing into his side. When she finally emerged, she asked, incredulously, 'Just – what? Seriously, where do you get this shit?'

He shrugged, grinning goofily as they stepped into the brightly lit gymnasium. 'Inspiration, it comes to me. I can't fight it, man.'

Dmitri's voice was a low purr that resonated in her chest cavity and settled, curled, in her diaphragm. 'Late as usual, I see. Sorry, Mason, you'll have to pair off with her again.'

Mason took a leap back, grimacing. 'Shit, Rose, I take everything back.'

She just laughed. 'Don't worry – I'll be gentle.'

'I'll try to ignore the menace in your voice,' Mason muttered, and begun lashing his hands doggedly. Dmitri grinned quietly at the pair of them, and padded into the centre of the gymnasium to correct the form of the myriad of tussling pairs as they wove and ducked and grappled.

He saw the potential for poetry in the class's motions, each block and feint and thrust offering a perfect counter-balance to each movement in the sequence. The pairs spun, and he paced on the balls of his feet between their contortions, the fulcrum of all the to-and-fro. Every moment, he could feel her body in relation to his – he never had to look for her, but could somehow feel every shift in her centre of mass as though his entire consciousness was tethered to the core of her.

He let it simmer in his brain, knowing it was useless to ignore it, and watched the loci of elbows and the parabolas traced by knees and toes. The heat of the room under the white flood lights expanded outwards, and after some unknown time of this endless orbiting, Dmitri called halt. He knew Rose had pinned Mason exactly twenty-two times, even after promising to go easy, although he had no idea how long he had paced the gym floor. His students ran sweaty hands over dull hair, kneaded at their tired muscles, and stretched themselves slack. Rose hung to the back of the parade of tired bodies, unwinding her hands, unknotting her hair and shaking it out.

'Rosa?' he called her back.

She started, blushed, and walked close to look up at him seriously. The gymnasium door thudded shut with an inaudible sigh. He could feel each pant of her breath in his lungs. 'Comrade! I, uh, just wanted to say – I'm sorry for earlier today. I didn't mean to force myself on you or anything. I feel like I took advantage of your hospitality and I really appreciate all your –'

He wrapped his hands around her waist and pulled her against him. Her mouth snapped close and she stared deep into his eyes, searching for something translatable, something explicable. He reached up with one hand to brush her hair back from her – red, it must be really red, she thought – face, and her eyes flickered involuntarily down to his lips. With the bone-deep inevitability of the sun setting, they fell into each other, mouth bruising mouth. She clutched his shirt in her fists as his calloused hands pressed against her spine. Everything in them was taut and straining and desperate and finally at peace.


End file.
